The Line (13 page)

Ms. Moore sighed. “I am sorry for your loss, Ms. Quillen. I’m sure your husband thought he was doing the right thing.” She shook her head again, almost imperceptibly this time. “Given your experience as a youth, I think I understand why you may have wanted to avoid the Enforcement Officers. They can be quite frightening. And we have all made mistakes in our youth.” Ms. Moore fell silent, her eyes drifting again to the fireplace mantel. She said nothing for a long time, so long that Vivian began to wonder if she was ill.

“Ms. Moore?” Vivian finally interrupted the older woman’s reverie. “Are you all right?”

Ms. Moore turned her head to look at Vivian, but her attention lagged behind her eyes, still occupied in whatever place her mind had visited during her silence. A second passed before she focused on Vivian’s face. “I will need your assurance that there is no reason to be alarmed regarding the authorities, Ms. Quillen. As I said, I have no wish for them to become interested in The Property. We have had peace here for many years, and while that may not be much, it is something.”

Vivian could feel relief flooding her veins. Still, she replied cautiously. “I have no reason to believe the authorities are interested in me, Ms. Moore. I was foolish in my youth, but I have not been foolish for many years.”

“Very well then.” Ms. Moore rose slowly from her seat. “I regret any discomfort my inquiry may have caused.” She gripped the arm of the chair to help steady herself. “I believe I may retire for an hour or so, Ms. Quillen. I feel a bit worn out. If you could call me for lunch?”

“Of course, Ms. Moore.” Vivian arose too, her body still buzzing with a combination of panic and relief. She watched Ms. Moore make her way slowly to the stairs. When the lady was out of sight, she closed her eyes and sagged against her chair, hand on her chest. She leaned there until her breathing had steadied, until she felt she could return to her cleaning.

Vivian spent most of the rest of the day worrying. She worried about Ms. Moore’s suspicions, though she thought she might have successfully headed those off, at least for now. She worried even more about Rachel. She kept thinking of the minibeam light from the night before, flicking on and off. She couldn’t pinpoint what was bothering her, but she knew she was going to keep a sharp eye on Rachel from now on. Sharper than usual, poor girl.

It wasn’t until afternoon, while she was putting the lunch dishes away, that Vivian remembered something Ms. Moore had said. She had remarked that she had no wish to see trouble
return
to The Property. When, Vivian wondered, as she dried the luncheon platter, had trouble been here before?

What kind of trouble had it been?

I
T WAS BEGINNING to get dark. Rachel wished Pathik would hurry up. She wasn’t sure how long she could stay out tonight. She felt uneasy about Vivian. After dinner Rachel had asked her mom if she could check on her new seedlings once more before bed. Vivian had barely looked up from the streamer; she was watching the local news.

“Okay, sweetie,” she had said, stifling a yawn. “Don’t be too late. I may go to bed early tonight, but I’ll leave a light on for you.”

Rachel had hugged her and slipped out the door, wondering how she got off so easily. She had expected Vivian to say no. The night before, Vivian had let her go to the greenhouse without much questioning, but they’d both been upset by the Identification, and the talk they had after it. Rachel figured Vivian’s unusual lenience was understandable in those circumstances. But two nights in a row? Rachel didn’t like it. She had been ready to cry and carry on and claim that she just needed a little time to think, in order to get permission to go.

But no. Nothing but “Okay, sweetie.” Rachel had been thinking about it while she waited in the greenhouse, and it seemed suspicious.

She pointed the minibeam toward the ground and flicked the switch to make sure the charge was good. She didn’t want to risk not being able to signal Pathik that it was safe. He might think she hadn’t come, that she had been too afraid. Last night she could tell that he thought she was frightened.

Maybe that was true, but right now all she felt was impatience. She wished he would hurry up and get here. She divided her attention between looking for his signal and watching the greenhouse door. The more she thought about Vivian’s nonchalance tonight, the more anxious she became.

Getting the antibiotics hadn’t been as hard as Rachel thought it would be. Rachel knew where they would be if there were any left. The day after Ms. Moore was hurt, Jonathan had sent Rachel to the house with a dendrobium cutting to put on her breakfast tray. Rachel had watched Vivian take bottles of pills from the cupboard above the sink and remove capsules, which she placed on a cloth napkin next to the glass of orange juice Ms. Moore had every morning. Vivian had told her then that one type of pill was for pain, and the other was to make sure that Ms. Moore’s leg didn’t get infected. Rachel had gambled on the hope that Ms. Moore hadn’t used them all, and she had been right.

This morning Rachel had feigned sleep while Vivian dressed and waited until she heard the front door shut. Then Rachel followed her. She stayed well back on the path so that she wouldn’t be seen. She knew that the first thing Vivian would do was to prepare Ms. Moore’s tray and take it up to her. Rachel waited outside the kitchen door, hidden in the shrubs.

She listened hard, but she couldn’t hear any sounds from inside; no cabinets closing, no dishes clattering. She wondered how she would know that Vivian had gone upstairs. Finally, she crept to the door and crouched under the window in its top half, pressing her ear against the wood beneath. She was about to risk a peek when she heard a buzzer go off inside. The timer! That meant that Ms. Moore’s muffins were done. Rachel heard her mother’s voice.

“There, now. Ah, these look tasty.” Rachel could hear her mom walking back and forth in the kitchen as she gathered the things she needed and placed them on the tray. “All right then, time for breakfast.”

Rachel waited until she heard nothing more. She rose up stealthily and peered into the kitchen through the window. It was empty. She took hold of the doorknob and squeezed her eyes shut, praying fervently. “Please be unlocked, please be unlocked, please be unlocked,” she whispered to herself. The knob turned easily. As simple as that, she was in the kitchen.

She didn’t have time to feel scared. She raced over to the sink and opened the cabinet door above it. There they were, two bottles of brownish plastic, with labels handwritten by Dr. Beller. She grabbed the first bottle and shook it. It was about half full. “Erythromycicillin XVII,” she read from the label. Quickly, she opened the bottle and poured all but a few of the red capsules into a bag she pulled from her pocket. She replaced the lid and put the bottle back on the shelf. On impulse, she opened the other bottle. It was practically full of green capsules. Dr. Beller had written “For pain” on its label. Rachel poured half of the capsules into the bag. Then she put the bottle back and ran.

Rachel had brought the capsules with her tonight, though she still didn’t know how she would manage to get them to Pathik. She hoped he had found some way to make it possible. She wondered what was taking him so long. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe he thought she hadn’t been able to get the medicine. Worse, maybe he thought she hadn’t even tried. When she told him she thought she could get him the medicine his father needed, he had seemed so hopeful. But there was something in his face that made her think he doubted her.

Finally, Rachel saw a glow in the meadow. It was him, signaling as they had agreed. She raised the minibeam and clicked it on and off twice to let him know it was safe to come forward.

She watched as he approached, first nothing more than a dark shape in the field, then more plainly a human, then unmistakably Pathik, standing in front of her in his odd clothes, sniffing the air like a dog. Pathik looked so silly bobbing his head around that she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Getting anything really bad?” Rachel said when Pathik was near enough to hear her whisper. “Any bears? Maybe a tiger? Someone from the government?”

Even in the dim light, she could see Pathik’s disgusted expression. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.” Rachel pulled the bag of pills out of her jacket pocket. She was feeling pretty proud of herself. “I got the stuff,” she said. “Now we just have to figure out how to get it from me to you.”

Pathik said nothing.

“Well?” Rachel was pretty sure Pathik didn’t have a clue how to get the medicine across the Line. “Any solutions to our little problem?”

Pathik was busy sniffing.

“Oh, come on.” Rachel was about to make a snide comment about psychic noses when Pathik held up his hand to silence her. He stared at her, and for the first time Rachel noticed how blue his eyes were—a deep, soft blue. They seemed, right now, to be emanating a light of their own. Suddenly that light disappeared as Pathik’s face dropped from sight.

“Rachel!” Vivian’s strained whisper reached Rachel’s ears at the same time she felt her mother’s hand close around her wrist. “Come with me.” Vivian yanked at Rachel hard, whirling her around. “I knew it,” she hissed. “I knew it was a signal, just like Daniel and Peter used to do on maneuvers with other collaborators. The minute I saw that minibeam, I should have stopped you.” Vivian started toward the greenhouse with Rachel in tow, her hand wrapped in a death grip around Rachel’s wrist.

“Mom!” Rachel struggled to free herself from her mother’s hold, digging her feet into the dirt. “Let go of me!”

“Quiet.” Vivian’s voice was a low growl. Rachel had never seen her like this, not even in Bensen when they were trying to get away from the Identification without being noticed.

“Rachel.” Vivian lifted Rachel’s chin with her free hand, forcing Rachel to look her in the eye. “Keep your voice down and get moving. There is no time right now to argue.”

“But Mom!” Rachel threw herself to the ground, using the same technique she had used when she was five years old and didn’t want to go where her mother told her. Now that she weighed as much as Vivian did, it actually worked. “I have to help Pathik. Indigo said we would help! Pathik’s father is
dying
, Mom. I can’t just pretend that isn’t happening!” Rachel glared up at her mother. “Dad wouldn’t have!” She spat the words out at Vivian, surprised at the venom she felt toward her.

“Your dad is gone!” Vivian crouched over her, still holding her wrist, her face close to Rachel’s. She stared at her daughter, her breath coming in gasps. When she spoke again, her voice was tight, each word carefully pronounced. “I am not discussing this with you now, Rachel. You have no idea what you’re risking, what can happen to you. Just get up
now
and move. We cannot afford any trouble.”

“Nor can I.” Rachel and Vivian turned simultaneously at the sound of Ms. Moore’s voice. She was standing in the middle of the flattened path of grass that Rachel’s feet had formed during her trips back and forth from the greenhouse. She was wearing a long bed robe, and her hair was, for the second time ever, a mess, steel strands flying loose around her head. She was aiming a stunner straight at the two of them.

“That’s illegal.” Vivian, frozen in a half crouch over Rachel, could not seem to take her eyes off the stunner in Ms. Moore’s hand. “Civilians aren’t allowed to carry weapons.” Her voice wavered, and she looked as shocked as if she had just seen Ms. Moore break into a tap dance on the parlor table.

Ms. Moore made a sound between a snort and a chuckle. “Civilians aren’t allowed much these days, are they, Ms. Quillen?” She lowered the stunner, carefully pointing the laser end away from her feet. “I thought I might need this to help convince you to leave The Property. All this sneaking around at night has me convinced that you
are
trouble, after all, more trouble than I can afford to have here.” She raised an eyebrow in response to Rachel’s astonished look. “Do you think I am totally unaware of what goes on here on my own property, young lady? I’ve had reason to pay particular attention of late, even if I’ve been assured that there is no cause for concern.” She shot Vivian a look. “However, from what I’ve just overheard, this trouble may be my own.”

Something in Ms. Moore’s eyes changed when she said this, and her face transformed from stern to sad. She turned to Rachel. “You said the name Indigo.” Ms. Moore looked into Rachel’s eyes intently, as though they might reveal something important. “Who is that?”

“Pathik’s grandfather,” Rachel whispered, staring back at Ms. Moore. “He told Pathik we would help. Pathik’s father is dying . . .” She held out the bag of pills she had stolen. “He
needs
these.” Rachel opened the bag to show Ms. Moore its contents. “I took them from your kitchen. I was going to give them to Pathik—there was supposed to be some way to shut down the Line. But it wasn’t there, and . . .” Rachel couldn’t go on. Her face was burning, and her throat felt like it was going to close up.

Ms. Moore took a deep breath. She touched the ring hanging from the chain around her neck, her gaze lowered to the ground. “Indigo,” she whispered, as though she were confiding a secret to the grass. She looked back up at Rachel. “Where,” she said, “is this Pathik?”

Rachel began to get up off the ground. Vivian, who had been silent during the exchange between her employer and her daughter, helped her up. They looked at each other, and Vivian gave an almost imperceptible nod. Rachel pointed behind her toward the Line. “He’s right there,” she said.

The three of them turned to look where Rachel was pointing. The path of flattened grass Rachel had made led up to a place right next to the Line. On the other side, a similar trodden path approached the same spot.

No one was there.

Ms. Moore walked right up to the Line, the closest she had been to it in years, and spoke. She said she thought she knew what the boy needed to get the medicine across. She told him, or perhaps she only told the meadow, that she would try to get it. She asked him to come back in two nights if he could, to that spot. They all waited to see if he would come out from his hiding place, but there was nothing. Ms. Moore stared into the dark for a long time. Then she turned back to Rachel and Vivian.